Family law hosts 10th anniversary lecture with Sheriff Tom Dart

On Wednesday, February 13, the Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the 10th annual Valentine’s Day Family Violence Distinguished Lecture. "Dismantling the Exploitative Sex Trade Industry in Cook County: Barriers, Issues and Challenges" will cover myths and disinformation as well as how cultural supports, including the media, hamper efforts to end sex trafficking in Cook County.

The guest speaker for the event, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, will discuss his experience implementing end demand strategies to eliminate trafficking and exploitation of young women and girls in the sex trade industry. Sheriff Dart's Human Trafficking Response Team (HTRT) has responded to the exploitation of females in the sex trade in Cook County since 2009.

The 10th anniversary Valentine's Day lecture coincides with the release of Family Law Center Senior Research Fellow Jody Raphael and Lindsey LaPointe's recent HTRT study, The Cook County Sheriff’s Human Trafficking Response Team: A Law Enforcement Model. The report focuses on how effectively the HTRT initiative is addressing the demand side of prostitution and provides readers with a sense of the guiding principles of the project, statistics about its effects and information that can be used to replicate the model.

The Valentine's Day lecture will take place at the DePaul Center, Room 8005, 1 E. Jackson Boulevard, from 2:15 – 4:30 p.m. Registration for this event is full.